


Further Notes on Elementary and the Procedural Format (With Some Observations About Sherlock)

by language_escapes



Series: Holmesian Meta [3]
Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8106778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/language_escapes/pseuds/language_escapes
Summary: A detailed essay breaking down the concepts of the procedural, Elementary's use of it, and where Sherlock comes in to play with it all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was in reference to an ask sent to my tumblr, in reference to a vlog I had done about the procedural format and Elementary. That vlog can be found at: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8106610/chapters/18579181

In an ask, which I’m not going to publish here because, frankly, the ask is really just a jump off point, someone tried to respond to my Very Special Episode about _Elementary_ as a procedural and why that ties into the books by, basically, arguing that _Sherlock_ was a superior show because it messes with that format.

Now, there are a whole slew of reasons why I rolled my eyes at this, largely all related to the fact that _I am not discussing Sherlock_ , dear GOD stop contacting me about that show, but I did decide that I needed flesh out my rapid fire vlog in an essay format that makes it easier to reference.

**Elitism and the Procedural Format**

I think it’s important to first discuss the attitudes inherent in the comment that “Elementary is a _procedura_ l” because it is always said (written) with that sort of sneering tone. There’s a value judgment there- it’s a procedural, it’s inferior, it isn’t as good as another format, etc. Which is really gross, guys.

There are a lot of people far more qualified than I who have written or spoken about the lines drawn between genre fiction (SF/F, mystery, romance) versus “literature” and I’m not going to rehash them here. Needless to say, there is almost a stigma attached to writing or reading genre fiction- it’s why many people don’t like to admit to reading romance novels, or keep their love of SF/F on the DL. Because it’s “dumb” literature, it’s dime store novels and trashy paperbacks, and it’s somehow _bad_ to enjoy those. It’s a lovely bit of elitism, the idea that “literature” (which is such a nebulous category, but that’s how I always hear it, literature and genre fiction, as though genre fiction weren’t literature) is better and more intelligent. And, as other people have explained very well, that is a ridiculous argument in so many ways.

I think the same thing applies here. Procedurals are treated here as an inferior genre, one that reflects poorly on the people who enjoy it. You are meant to feel shame when people tell you that _Elementary_ is a procedural. You are meant to feel bad about yourself. There’s this idea that liking a procedural (or genre fiction) is somehow a reflection on your ability to understand and appreciate “serious literature” and that, by enjoying the so-called “low brow” genre fiction or procedurals, you’re showing off how unintelligent you are.

The idea that there are “good” forms of storytelling and “bad” forms is elitism. And it’s total bullshit. I really hope I don’t have to sit down and explain why elitism is bad, why it’s counterproductive, why and how it relates to dehumanization, and how it is used as a tool in discrimination. I’m going to take it on faith that you’re a conscientious human being who is thoughtful and concerned about how they treat people around them.

 _There is no form of storytelling that is inherently superior to another_. There may be forms of storytelling that you, individually, enjoy more, and that’s absolutely fine! I confess that I’m not a big fan of existentialist fiction (Kafka, why do you plague me so??) but that doesn’t make me an unintelligent, uneducated person (and also, even if I were, why would that matter? Like, there is an entire secondary essay here about classism, ableism, and literature, and I will spare you that for now, but it’s totally there!). There is a huge difference between saying “I don’t like procedurals” as a few friends of mine have admitted when they explain to me why they don’t watch _Elementary_ , and saying “Elementary is a _procedural_ ” with that condescending, sneering tone.

**Why Don’t We Like Procedurals?**

But removing elitism from the equation, what is it about the procedural format that gives us pause when we hear about a Sherlock Holmes adaptation being one?

I think there are a couple of things that come to mind when we think of procedurals, a gut reaction when we hear the term. I think we think about television shows like _Law and Order_ , really the quintessential procedural, where each episode is a standalone, there is very little character development, and the episodes follow a formula closely enough that you can fairly well predict what is going to happen each week.

I read a really great thing the other day about the Sherlock Holmes stories (I don’t remember where, sorry) that said that we come to Sherlock Holmes for the mysteries and stay for the characters. That the reason these stories are read over and over again has less to do with the cases and more to do with trying to figure out these two wonderful, iconic characters. And I think that’s very true- I don’t think the Sherlock Holmes stories would remain as beloved as they are today if Holmes and Watson weren’t particularly memorable but the mysteries were amazing.

So the procedural format, from what I can tell, gives us pause because we think mysteries are interesting and all, but we don’t want a Sherlock Holmes adaptation that concerns itself with cases only, and Holmes and Watson are just the tools to move the story along.

**The New Procedural**

That’s the traditional procedural. That’s _Law and Order_ , original flavour. I think it’s important to note, however, that in the past ten years we’ve seen a real change in the procedural format. In fact, it’s changed so much that it probably constitutes its own subgenre, and we just haven’t come up with a term for it yet.

Let’s use _Law and Order_ as our standard for the Traditional Procedural: each episode is a self-contained story. At the end, there’s a reset button; any backstory we’ve learned is likely to get retconned or forgotten or outright contradicted in later seasons or even, in some amusing cases, in the very next episode. The story, the crime, is the motivating factor for the plot. And you can start watching _Law and Order_ at any time and not have missed too much, if anything at all.

The New Procedural takes a different approach, though. Many, many recent procedurals have adopted the following format: each episode is a self-contained story, but often with two stories running at once- one with the crime, one with character-driven plot. There is no reset button; backstory is expanded upon and referenced, continuity is much more consistent with only a few mistakes here and there, and there are consequences for actions taken week to week. The story, the crime, is a motivating factor for the plot, but it’s very likely that the characters drive the plot as much as the plot drives the characters. And while you can often jump into the New Procedural at any point without massive confusion, the New Procedural takes advantage of season-long arcs, which are advanced across multiple episodes, so you’re going to have missed enough that you’re probably going to wind up reading episode synopses on Wikipedia in order to catch yourself up.

 _Elementary_ very much takes on the format of the New Procedural. There are a number of other shows that take on that format too, but I’m going to be honest here: I try to keep my television shows limited, so I’m not entirely aware of all the current shows out there. _Person of Interest_ follows the New Procedural format (just finished mainlining the first two seasons, omg so good) with both a myth arc and a season-long arc; _Fringe_ followed this format too. I’m pretty sure _Supernatural_ would qualify as well, though I haven’t seen it in about five seasons, but from what I can tell there is a Monster of the Week combined with a season-long story. _House_ , a few seasons in, also started working with this format.  
(I am aware that those are not crime shows; however, the concept of the procedural doesn’t refer simply to crime procedurals. It’s a formula that can be and is used for a variety of shows.)

You can see transitions in television procedurals as well. Consider _NCIS_. _NCIS_ begins as your Traditional Procedural. Somewhere down the line, though, they started moving into New Procedural format, with story arcs and a desire to have the characters become dynamic rather than remain static. _Criminal Minds_ went through this as well, though the series is young enough that the shift began in the earlier seasons rather than the middle or later ones. Both _NCIS_ and _Criminal Minds_ , however, remain closer to the Traditional Procedural format (in that the Victim of the Week is the vehicle for the story) while _Elementary_ aligns much more closely to the New Procedural format (with the Mystery of the Week being understood as equally important to the Character Drama of the Week).

With the New Procedural, many of those potential concerns about _Elementary_ vanish, because the New Procedural format cares about characters as much as it does about crime. Holmes and Watson aren’t just tools who could be swapped out for any new cop; they’re _people_ , people we’ve come to care about, people with whom we get to share their triumphs and their failures. We ache for Holmes and Watson, and we laugh with them, and, let’s be real, we sit there and flail and squee and fall off sofas in our ridiculous adoration for them. The New Procedural format permits this much more easily than the Traditional Procedural format.

I think it’s notable, too, that shows that fall into the New Procedural format are much more likely to have metric tons of fanworks. Because Traditional Procedurals don’t give much to work with in characterization, whereas the New Procedural allows us to go “MY BABIES”.

**But You Want to Talk About _Sherlock_?**

Well, that’s all well and good, but since the ask was specifically about how _Sherlock_ is innovative and new and fresh and whatever (OMG STOP TALKING TO ME ABOUT SHERLOCK WHEN I’M TALKING JUST ABOUT ELEMENTARY) let’s talk about _Sherlock_.

As I said in my video, I think there is an important difference in structure between novels and short stories, and that there is a correlation, structurally, between novels and films, and short stories and television shows. What I didn’t say (because I talk about _Elementary_ and don’t really discuss other adaptations) is that _Sherlock_ , with its 90 minute format, falls squarely into the novels/films category rather than the short stories/television show format. Yes, it is, technically speaking, a television miniseries, but with an hour and a half to tell their story, they fall into the film category, as most television shows have between 42 and 60 minutes. As such, the procedural format that I lay out in my Very Special Episode does not apply to _Sherlock_.  


THAT BEING SAID, I think it is inaccurate, first of all, to say that _Sherlock_ isn’t a procedural. Eliminating format as a concern here (I’ll discuss that below) and looking strictly at what a procedural entails in terms of storytelling, _Sherlock_ follows much the same procedure as other crime dramas. A case is presented to Holmes. Holmes investigates. Stuff happens. Resolution. Note that the difference here is the insertion of “stuff happens” which I didn’t include in my original assessment of the canon short stories. That is because _Sherlock_ , with its ninety minutes, has some time where it can explore more. This is similar to the canon novels with regards to storytelling.

I also think it’s inaccurate to say that _Sherlock_ is doing something totally new in terms of format. As I said earlier, I genuinely don’t watch a lot of television, but in terms of format (I am only talking about format here, not storytelling, an inverse of the above paragraph) _Sherlock_ is structurally similar to shows like _Poirot_ and _Wallander_ and _Case Histories_ , possibly even _Luther_ , though I’ve never seen that show. I think it is very possible to make an argument that the Traditional Procedural format versus the New Procedural format could be present here as well (examining, for example, _Poirot_ against shows like _Sherlock_ and _Case Histories_ ), but without further knowledge of British crime drama, I’m afraid I don’t feel qualified to make statements like that.

**Elementary and Sherlock: Differences in Format and Storytelling**

Now I’m going to do what I hate doing, and that is to compare and contrast _Sherlock_ and _Elementary_ within the procedural format and look at differences in storytelling as assisted and hindered by their respective formats.  


_Elementary_ and _Sherlock_ are fundamentally different in two ways (in my opinion) when it comes to their format: the structuralization of the episodes versus the structuralization of the season. _Elementary_ has shorter episodes, but a longer season (~1008 minutes worth of television in their first season; ~4032 minutes over all the seasons); _Sherlock_ has longer episodes, but a shorter season (~270 minutes per season, ~925 minutes between all three aired seasons and the special). Because of these differences, they simply cannot tell a story the same way.

 _Elementary_ has a procedure to follow each episode in order to move the stories along. They have the Victim of the Week concept thoroughly in place. However, because _Elementary_ has a lengthier season, they can correspondingly create lengthier plotlines that extend across multiple episodes. _Elementary_ has story arcs, in other words. In our first twelve episodes, the major, overarching story was addiction and recovery. In the last half of our season, we have the changing role of Watson as well as the shadow of Moriarty, growing progressively imminent. In each episode that falls under these arcs, we get either A plots or B plots that focus on these story arcs (for instance, 1x18, Déjà vu All Over Again, is arguably an advancement of the changing role of Watson as the A plot, with the Victim of the Week being the B plot). There are also one-off episodes that are intended to take a momentary break from our story arc (1x14, The Deductionist, potentially falls into this category). In sum, 42 minute episodes mean the weekly story is shorter while the seasonal story is longer and more complex.

 _Sherlock_ , on the other hand, with its shorter seasons, tends to have story arcs within their episodes. In 1x01, for instance, we have Holmes and Watson meeting and getting to know each other alongside the Victim of the Week, and by the end of the episode they’re best of friends- because there simply isn’t time to explore the slow development and growth over an entire season. Will there be growth? Of course, it wouldn’t be good television if our characters were static, but they had to end the episode as friends in order for the rest of the season to be plausible. You also have episodes like 2x01, where we have the Victim of the Week but we also explore in broad strokes the concepts of attraction and romance in relation to Holmes- and conclude it in the same episode. Structurally speaking, this has to be done. 

What is interesting about _Sherlock_ is that, in terms of structure, each season can be summed up thusly: episode one establishes the status quo; episode two is case fic, or maintains the status quo; and episode three demolishes the status quo. For example, in season one, we have Holmes and Watson meeting and becoming friends in episode one; in episode two- well, I don’t talk about episode two of _Sherlock_ , but needless to say it is case fic and maintains the status quo; and in episode three the status quo changes as Moriarty appears from the shadows and causes a paradigm shift. Similar can be said of season two: in episode one we find the new status quo as Moriarty returns to the shadows; episode two is a Hounds case fic that maintains our status quo; and episode three demolishes the status quo as Moriarty, once again, returns from the shadows with a new game to play. Season three: Sherlock returns, and a new status quo is introduced with Mary; second episode has Watson and Mary getting married (continuation of status quo), along with a case; episode three demolishes the status quo with the revelation of Magnusson and Mary. In the case of _Sherlock_ , 90 minute episodes mean the weekly story is longer and more complex, while the seasonal story is shorter and more to the point.

**Conclusion**

When examined in this light, it becomes apparent that, rather than competing and oppositional adaptations, _Sherlock_ and _Elementary_ actually  mirror each other. They are complements of one another, with each show valuing similar things (mysteries and character development) while approaching them from different angles due to formatting disparities.

It is important to note that neither of these approaches to structure and storytelling is better than the other. They are, as I say, simply different. And because of these differences, we wind up with two different shows that are each qualitatively good. What it comes down to is what format you like. It is perfectly all right to not like procedurals very much and thus not watch _Elementary_. It is equally all right to not enjoy the miniseries format and so stay away from _Sherlock_. Furthermore, it’s just fine to like them both! The problem comes in when you try to insist that one format or storytelling style is superior to the other. Again I’ll say: _there is no form of storytelling that is inherently superior to another_.

(I feel like this can really be summed up as “Don’t you dare come to my tumblr with your uninformed opinion that blatantly twists what I’ve said or just ignores it all together in order to make a point that is not only elitist, but logically flawed, because I WILL wind up devoting 3,000 words to telling you why you’re wrong while also managing not to insult and demean another show, providing an analysis of television structure, and refusing to engage in backbiting since I didn’t even name you.”)

(GET OFF MY LAWN.)


End file.
